In recent years, cooperative processing has been performed between general consumer electrical devices such as TV receivers and DVD/HDD (Hard Disk Drive) recorders that can be connected to a network. For example, a user can instruct a DVD/HDD recorder to perform scheduled recording by using a remote control or the like to perform an operation on a TV receiver displaying a TV program listing.
Technology for cooperative processing among devices is disclosed in, for example, patent documents 1 and 2. The following briefly describes the technology disclosed in these documents.
Patent document 1 discloses a content recording system in which a plurality of video recording devices are connected to a network. In this content recording system, if a plurality of videos provided at the same time are to be recorded by one of the video recording devices, and recording all of the videos would exceed the recording capability of the video recording device, the non-operating resource of another video recording device is utilized in performing the video recording.
Also, patent document 2 discloses a programmable controller network system in which a user presets candidate alternative stations for a management station and a priority order for the alternative stations. If the management station stops operating, the alternative station having the highest priority among the candidate alternative stations set by the user is selected as the alternative station.    Patent document 1: Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-25-2402    Patent document 2: Japanese Patent Application Publication No. H11-346215